History of Medicine

Checklist of Exhibit Items

This exhibition is designed to celebrate the importance of medical ephemera,those minor transient documents of everyday life which were not meant to survive, but surprisingly did. Such ephemera includes tickets of admission to events long past, posters warning about unsafe health practices, advertisements for products no longer marketed, and booklets reviewing medical procedures and practices no longer necessary. For some reason, these objects have remained and now, often years after their moments of utility, they bear witness to an earlier time and offer insights to the historical past in a direct and revealing way. Much of the printed ephemera is plainly utilitarian, but certain items such as engraved trade cards or chromolithograph
sheet music covers are attractive and have a certain measure of artistic appeal. But the content is of greater importance than the form in adding to our understanding of medical activities. And this is why the National Library of Medicine, known as the world's premier source of books and journals providing medical information,
is also dedicated to collecting the ephemera which will further add to its storehouse of medical knowledge.

Most of the images displayed in this online exhibit were scanned from items in the private collection of William H. Helfand who generously loaned the originals to the National Library of Medicine for the exhibit,
Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Varieties of Medical Ephemera. Permission to reproduce or publish any images from this online exhibit therefore resides with Mr. Helfand. Please refer to the copyright page for more information.

London Hospital for Charitably Relieving Sick and Wounded, diploma with engraved scene of the hospital with Christ and His disciples in the foreground made out to William Mathias, London, 1816, 35 x 23.8 cm.